MUMBAI: A special court today sentenced to death five of the 12 accused convicted for the 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts that killed 188 people and injured 829 commuters. Seven convicts were sentenced to life in jail. The sentences come two weeks after the 12 were found guilty.

The prosecution had sought the death penalty for eight of the convicts and life imprisonment for four of them, for the seven, serial train blasts on July 11, 2006, on Mumbai's packed suburban trains.

A Special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) court judge, Yatin Shinde sentenced to death Ehtesham Sidduiqui, Asif Khan, Faisal Shaikh, Naveed Khan and Kamal Ansari, for planting the bombs on the trains.

Tanveer Ansari and Mohammed Ali, who provided the premises in Govandi for assembling the bombs, and Sajid Ansari, who made the timers and the electric circuits used to set off the bombs were given life sentences. Special Public Prosecutor Raja Thakare they should be sentenced to life until the end of their lives and in no case for less than 60 years.